REQUIEM SYNOPSIS
HOME PENUMBRA: REQUIEM Welcome to the crosswired mind. There is no exact continuation of the Penumbra story existing here, you are lost in a series of chambers that require solving increasingly difficult enviroment puzzles in order to move from one to the next. These chambers seem to represent the spaces of the collective conscious that Phillip has finally succumbed to and this idea is backed up by the ability of characters who died in previous episodes to speak directly with Phillip from within these spaces as if he is now part of the hivemind intellect. The puzzle solving would suggest that Phillip is either partialy in control of his own conscious decisions and is hunting an escape or he is being allowed to believe the possibility of escape exists; in either case Phillip does not appear to be a complete convert to the Tuurngait hivemind existence. The puzzles are well built all though some of them can be downright frustrating to figure out but from a gameplay point of view Requiem is exactly this; a puzzle. As an expansion Requiem represents the fact that Penumbra itself is a puzzle, the real experience in this game lies in trying to decipher what exactly happened to Phillip and what has really been touched on about the human condition. We are lead through the first two games, which are set in motion by someone making what amounts to all the wrong decisions, in a constant state of flux and end up at the conclusion of each with no answers to any questions that exist or may have developed. We are literally left in the dark to ponder what happened and why it happened. All we do know is that it appears in episode two that the protaganist Phillip is already irrevocably lost but this is not entirely confirmed until Requiem where there is little doubt that you are now wondering through the maze of a tortured consciousness. The Tuurngait makes its presence known here not by attacking you with The Infected but by comunicating directly to you via its hivemind mentallity. Several characters from previous episodes will speak to you, sometimes just babbling and other times speaking of things that happened to them as well as there connection to what is happening to you. It seems that most of Penumbra is trying to get those that play it to think more deeply about their human actions and the consequences of them. There are many, many qoutes throughout the games that beg to be considered and they can be found here for your inspection Penumbra Wikiquotes. Eloff says at one point in Requiem "Most people unquestioningly pursue what society tells them to pursue, a mindless herd. But then, there are those that think for themselves. Only these stubbornly logical minds could join the Elevated Caste. I questioned everything I thought I knew and felt prepared. But what use is that now in a place that defies all logic?". Another quote by Eminnes speaks to human concepts "I'm so bored. I know you, this place, why Carpenter's Elevated came here. I know the expanse of the universe, the a priori nature of time. You could see it to, were you not wrapped up in your own humanity. Artistic expression, free will, batting around your comforting fictional concepts like a toddler with a tennis racket." There are plenty of excerpts such as these for you to consider as you wade through the puzzling madness of the hivemind's chambers and in the end you are no more given the answers than you were in the previous episodes; it is for you to ponder this place and what happened here. Is it concievable that the human race is just as lost? Two of Requiem's level openings say it best: Truth is like a sculpture - one perspective is never enough for true understanding. Truth is the consensus of opinion.